France authenticates Yemen hostage video
Xinhua, June 2, 2015 Adjust font size:
France on Monday authenticated a video in which a French woman abducted in Yemen in February appeared, the French foreign ministry said.
"It is a video in which Isabelle Prime appears," the Quai d'Orsay announced.
"All the relevant state services are mobilized to free our compatriot," the French foreign ministry said on Monday without elaborating.
Prime, a French national working for an international organization, was kidnapped in the Yemeni capital Sana'a with a local translator on February 24.
In a video posted on YouTube on May 4, the hostage appealed to French President Francois Hollande and Yemeni exiled leader to help her and to do more to get her freed, according to local reports.
Three months ago, Paris announced the closure of its embassy in Sana'a and evacuated its diplomatic staff due to security concerns after the Shi'ite Houthi group, also known as Ansarullah, based in the far northern province of Saada, took over control of Sana'a last September after deadly clashes with government forces.
Yemen has seen persistent unrest since 2011 when mass protests forced former President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down, which created a power vacuum that benefits Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the most active terrorist groups in the Middle East. Endit